This was the best hunting dog (and smartest dog) I ever had. I'm 18 in this picture, that is my new Remington 870 and my first grouse.
I got Rex for free from a hotdog vendor. He told me the owner of his mom (a Shepard) moved to Florida. I'm sure he was a mutt, but don't know what was in him.
I never trained Rex to hunt, he just knew what to do. When we hunted squirrels, he would chase them up a tree, then go to the far side and bark till the squirrel circled to my side. It was so easy, I quite doing it. The grouse went down in a swampy area and was not fully dead. Rex ran out and retrieved it, did not put a mark on it, brought it back and dropped it at my feet. (all without any training or commands, he just knew what to do).
When I tell people who train hunting dogs about him, they just turn and walk away from me.